Words and Thoughts of Joshua Scott Witsaman

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This interview you are about to read has been the most difficult of the People I Know interviews to edit thus far. There are several factors to this, one of which was my recent 100th Post post which surprisingly put me under a lot of pressure to perform. Secondly it seems that these past few weeks have been hell-bent on doing everything they could to delay any and all progress I tried to make on posting this interview. And thirdly the words of Jason E. Lemmon are not easily condensed down into a manageable blog length format. It proved to be quite a struggle and some of his concise wisdom had to unfortunately be cut so that other gleaming Lemmon nuggets could shine through.

But who is Jason Lemmon you may be asking yourself. He is an enigma. A man of humor, yet a connoisseur of some of the most finely crafted dramatic works. Jason seems to be an individual who stands alone, thinking for himself yet often can he be found in the company of throngs of his friends. An individual of deliberate speech and mercurial wit. Prepare yourselves for a glimpse into the mind of this one, this only, Jason Lemmon.

Joshua: First of all Jason, thank you for sitting down with me here today for this interview. I’ve got some hard-hitting questions, I hope you’re ready.

Jason: I am.

Joshua: Good. Starting off I know you’re going back to school now, so what are your goals currently, in life?

Jason: My goals. Well I’m going to college to be a math teacher for high school. But I have a lot of different goals. I mean are you talking like bucket list type goals? Or just like what I want to do with my future?

Joshua: Well let’s say, what’s your five-year plan?

Jason: Five year plan, ok. Well three and a half to four and a half years of that is college so . . .

Joshua: (Laughing) Let’s go seven year plan . . .

Jason: Seven year plan, ok. So then with the extra three years then, I hope to find a job. Although I’m not sure if I’m going to relocate or not, and find a person that I regularly have sex with.

Joshua: Those are some good goals. That’s three years, you should be able to do that.

Jason: Well it gives me seven years for the girl, because that could happen during college. The teaching job probably won’t happen until I get the degree.

Joshua: True. That’s true. And so it would definitely be a girl though that you’d regularly be having sex with?

Jason: Um, I mean as of now that is all that I’m open to. But if I were to find a man who overpowered my erotic senses then I guess I would make the exception.

Joshua: Now Jason, you are a naturally funny person, humorous I mean. Who are some of your favorite comedians of all time? And, in the same answer, who are some of your favorite current, or newer comedians?

Jason: Well my inspiration in comedy was always George Carlin. It’s unfortunate that he passed away especially with some of the stuff that’s happened in the last few years. I would have loved to see his point of view on them. That’s like the easiest answer by far. And then modern-day, Louis C.K. has honestly gone up, I love him almost as much as I love George Carlin because I find Louis C. K. to be one of the funniest men alive.

Joshua: Have you watched his show, the new one, Louie? I’ve only seen a couple of episodes but I enjoyed it a lot.

Jason: It’s a great show, it still doesn’t surpass his standup, but it’s still extremely funny. You know he had an old sitcom that was canceled very quickly, but it was on HBO, called Lucky Louie.

Joshua: I remember hearing that name, I never saw it though.

Jason: And of course, just the other day my roommate and I watched Pootie Tang, which was written and directed by Louis C. K.

Joshua: What?? No. Are you serious?! I had no idea!

Jason: It’s true, yeah. He was the sole writer and sole director of Pootie Tang.

Joshua: No way! That . . . blows my mind. Really?

Jason: Go watch that movie again, and you’ll have a completely different perspective of it.

Pootie Tang: Written AND Directed by Louis C. K.

Joshua: Wow. I’m going to have to do that. You have blown my mind here today. That’s fantastic. But staying with the topic of comedians here for a moment, what in your opinion makes a good comedian? And what makes a bad comedian?

Jason: I think half of it, a good 50% of being a good comedian, is just presentation alone. Because you can take hilarious bits and make them not funny at all just by presenting them wrong. And vice versa, you can say things that aren’t even regarded as humorous but somehow you deliver them in a funny way. So yeah I’d say 50% right there is that. And then the rest is just split up into stuff like coming up with jokes that people can relate to, things that people don’t talk about often but everyone experiences. You’ll almost always hit the mark with stuff like that. If you can hit on taboo subjects, I mean I guess part of being funny is having balls. Being able to say things some people will hate you for, but a lot of people will find you hilarious for. And again an easy way to suck would be bad presentation. Also if 90% of your material is stolen, that usually isn’t funny. So that’s why I hate Carlos Mencia.

Joshua: Who are some other comedians that you hate?

Jason: Um, Dane Cook. Although I used to love him actually. When he first started, I thought Dane Cook was absolutely hilarious.

Joshua: Lauren and I were talking about this exact thing recently. We were saying that it seems like it was very quickly that everyone went from really liking Dane Cook, to suddenly everyone hates him. We were trying to figure out the reasoning for that. I said because I think he got real cocky, after he got successful. After he got successful, it just seems to me that he got really cocky and really lazy.

Jason: I think you’re right on, because I think he started off as some guy doing something completely weird and odd, you know? He was just being who he was, and it was funny. But then once he became really popular he let if all go to his head and now what he is doing is no longer weird and out of the normal but it’s really cool and badass and so he just started to act like he knows that now. His performances come off now as him overdoing everything. It just seems like a lot of his jokes where he took them too far wasn’t anymore because they were funny, but because he just knew that’s what everyone reacts to. He just lost a lot of the humor, again I guess it goes back to presentation. He just presented things differently after he became famous.

Joshua: Now you’ve done some stand up right?

Jason: Just very little, locally.

Joshua: Yeah, but go into that a little. What was that like for you?

Jason: It was actually a pretty great experience, I probably performed for 15 people total, and 9 or 10 of them were friends and family. But it was still really fun. I mean it’s not exactly what you expect once you get up there, and no matter how confident you are you’re nervous as hell once you’re on the stage. It was a really good experience and I actually wish I would have gone on with it more and in the past four months or so I’ve started writing stuff down to possibly get back out there.

Joshua: Really? That’s awesome. That’s fantastic, I hope you do. I would be interested to see what you have to say, it’d be good. Continuing with comedy a little bit more, there’s the old practical joke with the bucket full of water over the door. Person opens the door, water pours down on top of them. So recreate that joke, but instead of water what would you put in the bucket?

Jason: Well a funny thing is I’ve done almost this same joke, but I did use water. Once when I was in high school I paid a kid to mow my lawn while my mom was at work because I was supposed to mow the lawn. While he was doing this for me, he was almost finished, and while he was mowing down the side of my house I went out on the roof and dumped a bucket of water on him. Which I found hilarious. He didn’t because he was in the middle of doing me a favor. Granted I had to mow the rest of the lawn, but I only paid him part of what I originally was going to because he didn’t finish mowing my lawn. So . . .

Joshua: It was a win/win.

Jason: Yeah that’s fair right? Anyway though to answer your question, since I didn’t do that. Obviously there are plenty of inappropriate things that I would love to put in that bucket such as semen, or something like that. Usually just the phrase “bucket of semen” is pretty funny. One of my big things though is that the joke needs to be funnier then it is going to piss the person off, and I think that would be about as mad as you could make someone.

Joshua: Yeah I think that would do it.

Jason: But if I were going to really fill it with something . . . this is a tough question.

Joshua: It is.

Jason: It would always be fun to put the oil in there and then blow feathers on them, but that’s only because it’s so clichéd it would make me laugh.

Joshua: And if you could actually arrange for that to work in real life, like get the feathers to blow on them and have it all work out, that’d be great.

Jason: Yeah it would be great because you would have just perfectly reenacted the oldest cliché in comedy. But I have always thought that cottage cheese was really funny. I know when I was younger I used to say that I always wanted go swimming in a pool of cottage cheese. It just seems like such a random substance. But the more I’ve actually been talking about that, the more I’m actually now thinking in my head, creamed corn.

Joshua: Creamed corn? That’s a good one.

Jason: So either creamed corn, or the blood of a recently murdered victim.

Joshua: (Laughing) Yes, both good answers. Good, good. Alright now moving on. I know you’re an avid reader. Who are some of your favorite authors and are you reading anything currently?

Jason: My favorite author is Kurt Vonnegut Jr., he’s my favorite author because he has my favorite book, I mean all his books are great but my favorite book is Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday. I also really like Chuck Klosterman a lot. He used to write for Spin magazine, and now he’s got a bunch of journal books out and two novels, although the first one sucked. But the second one sounds really interesting. I’m technically currently in the middle of another book, although I’ve forgotten all about it and haven’t read it in probably three months. I was in the middle of the Handmaids Tale, it’s very good. As far as comedy writing, Chuck Klosterman is pretty funny. I read all of George Carlin’s books, obviously. I guess when I read, for some reason I lean a lot more toward serious drama. There’s a book that was incredibly good, that I can not think of the title of . . . . but I highly recommend it. I own it even, and it is amazing. So read that.

Joshua: (Laughing) Alright, I’ll have to check that one out!

Jason: There’s a great book called the 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear and it’s like kind of a kids story but it’s written more for adults. It is fantastic. No one has ever heard of it, but I always recommend it.

Joshua: You may have told me about that before.

Jason: Oh did I? I may have. Well now it’s on record that I recommended it to you.

Joshua: What would you say has been the best movie/book adaption of all time? That you’ve seen at least.

Jason: That’s tough. Right away Fight Club comes to mind, because it’s so popular for being, the movie that was better than the book. At least in my opinion, and many others.

Joshua: Which is like the rarest of things.

Jason: Yeah. But that’s such a cliché answer I don’t want that to be my answer! Let me think a second here . . . . my problem is all the books I read are books that weren’t changed into movies, or were changed into way, way worse movies.

Joshua: Ha! Yeah.

Jason: Honestly, I think the Shining is better than the book. Although its nothing like the book, they’re so far apart they’re almost two different things. I don’t mean it to be insulting but by changing so much I think they even improved it. I mean the book’s not bad but . . .

Joshua: I’ve never read the Shining.

Jason: It’s okay.

Joshua: Well I don’t think you have to worry about that criticism, I’m pretty sure Stephen King doesn’t read my blog.

Jason: Ummm . . . . I’m gonna have to say Fight Club.

Joshua: Oh? Good answer, good answer. I’ve never heard that one before. Now, as a big movie buff Jason, quickly off the top of your head: Favorite director of all time, favorite movie of all time, and favorite genre of movies. Go!

Jason: This is actually really tough. I really hate this question.

Joshua: Good I like to ask questions people hate.

Jason: I like Todd Solondz a lot because his movies are kind of weird and unique. Honestly though I’d probably have to say Darren Aronofsky is my favorite director, if I had to choose one. His movies are crazy, they’re always good, and he’s just unique I guess. It seems like everything he puts out is something that you’ve never seen before and I mean it’s amazing to see one director doing that because Hollywood itself can’t even do that. So I’d definitely go with him I guess.

Darren Aronofsky: Better than the entire Hollywood collective.

Joshua: And can I just interject here about how disappointed I am that he’s not directing the Wolverine movie, because that would’ve been just the craziest fucking thing ever.

Jason: Yeah that would have been insane, I was interested when I first heard that. Now the next Wolverine movie is just going to be as good as the first one. But now for favorite movie of all time? Again this one is really tough just because it gets updated all the time. Actually I do have one answer to that I just always give because it’s always up there, and that’s Johnny Dangerously. I have always thought that movie was absolutely hilarious, I don’t know, it’s one of my favorite movies. For it’s time it’s absolutely fantastic. It’s very ballsy for its time, had a lot of jokes that people considered risqué. And Roman Moroni is such a great character too.

Joshua: And what is your overall favorite genre of movie?

Jason: Genre, is probably the hardest one to answer. I mean I love to watch comedies, but the thing with comedies even though this completely goes against what I just answered, is that none of my favorite movies come from comedies (other than my absolute favorite movie). But I mean when I list my top ten favorite films of all time, it’s almost all drama and maybe a little bit of thrillers, but drama always has a huge role. It seems like when you get into sci-fi or comedy those are genres that aren’t going to have a top film unless it’s like epic, it has to be absolutely amazing. Whereas drama, because they involve so many emotions you just have to make a really good film and then on top of that everyone is emotionally involved and therefore it feels like an even better film. So I think that’s why those always lead, dramas kind of rule my favorites. But I think that horror and comedy are my two favorites to watch, they’re the most fun. And when the two mix, it’s fantastic.

Joshua: So Jason very quickly if you can, and this may be a difficult request, summarize what you think the biggest problems are with modern Hollywood and the movie industry.

Jason: I don’t know what’s wrong with movies, honestly, in reality it’s more the audience. The fact is Jack and Jill made money. The only movie that beat the Muppets at the box office, which is a classic comedy, the Muppet movie was witty, everything was genius about that movie, and the only movie to beat it and destroyed it this weekend, was Twilight. You look at the popularity of certain movies and you start to realize that they are going to continue to make shit, because everyone’s eating this shit up. So unfortunately I think for there to be a real significant change in how well movies are written and made we’re going to have to actually see people starting to put the better movies up top and not watch the shit. I don’t see that happening.

Joshua: Earlier today we were talking about blogs, and you mentioned your movie blog and you have My Blog Skip. What do you like to write about on your blogs in general, and why do you write blogs?

Jason: I started My Blog Skip because in the past I’ve had multiple blogs here and there I had Who Let the Blogs Out for a little while, but I just enjoy writing and sharing things that I find interesting or funny. But every time I made a blog I would just lose interest and not really care so I decided to start again, go at it one more time with My Blog Skip. At first I was pretty successful and I think my favorite thing that I wrote, and I only did like three of these, was called Saturday Cinema Showdown where I just took two movies and basically made it sound like they were fighting in a boxing match, but really I was just rating which one was better than the other. I really enjoyed it but I put so much time into those blog entries. The photoshopped images alone would take me an hour just to get those looking correct. I put so much time and effort into it and I didn’t really have any readers at that time, like I had two or three friends who read it so as much as I enjoyed it, and it’s not even that I didn’t appreciate the few that did read it, it’s just that I lost interest without even thinking about it. I stopped writing them. I realized suddenly I’m two Saturdays behind and then I kind of just left that. Then I think becoming a member of Reddit was a big help because I started seeing funny things all the time, so then I would post those sometimes. Then it became a pretty generic blog where I’d barely write but I would post things all the time that I would find funny. I’m glad I still have that but just recently I realized I still wanted to be writing, that was the whole purpose of even starting it, I wanted to get back into writing. My one friend actually started a cooking blog on called Through the Cooking Glass on Tumblr, and I was asking her about that. I was saying ‘what made you decide to write this’ and she said ‘I just wanted to write again and since I love cooking, that would be a good way to focus on the writing’. Then I realized that was my mistake I’ve been trying to come back to writing in general, nothing specific, and I realized that maybe if I focus specifically on something I love, which movies are the big thing, that I’d find it easier to write more often. Then I created Movie On Up, and from there I’ve been pretty successful so far. I’ve posted seven posts, and this has only been just over a week. But that’s why I started it though, it’s all been trying to get back into writing and this time I found specifically if I focus on this category, that’s the way to do it.

Joshua: Yeah, that’s why I started interviewing people, and started this whole People I Know segment. I know a lot of interesting people so why not just write about them, instead of trying to think up something to write about.

Jason: I was actually pretty jealous whenever you started posting these because it was an idea I thought was good enough that I wished I’d thought of it.

Joshua: Wow. That’s a very high compliment actually, thank you. But now I’m going to completely change the subject. There was a quest we were on at one time and I can’t remember if we’d ever discovered this or not, but your birthday falls on John Stamos’ birthday. My birthday is the same as Bob Saget’s, and we were hoping to find another of our friends who had Dave Coulier’s birthday. Did we ever find anyone with Dave Coulier’s birthday?

Jason: We never did find anyone with Dave Coulier’s birthday.

Joshua: Because I thought at one time you said that you had found someone who shared his birthday.

Jason: Actually I feel like there was a point where I thought ‘oh my god, that’s the birthday!’, but I don’t think it was a friend or anyone, I don’t think we ever found someone who we could talk to or hang out with. Do you remember what the birthday is?

Joshua: It is September 21st. Dave Coulier’s birthday is September 21st.

Jason: Well maybe a reader out there will have his birthday! If any of you out there share Dave Coulier’s birthday contact Josh.

Is your birthday September 21st? Send me a note, let's be friends!

Joshua: And if you live in the Ohio area.

Jason: Or if you want to get on Skype with the two of us.

Joshua: And just hang out on Skype for hours on end. The circle must be complete.

Jason: We can start a Full House birthday blog.

Joshua: Ok, now here’s a question I’ve been asking everyone I interview, but I’m going to change it up a little bit for you. Everyone hates this one, and you might hate this even worse because it’s going to be a little more difficult for you. Here it is, describe yourself with a phrase of 7 words or less.

Jason: My mom named me Jason Edward Lemmon.

Joshua: Next! I know you’re a fan of dinosaurs, if you could have, own, any one dinosaur and that would be the only dinosaur alive in existence, which one would you have?

Jason: Now does this dinosaur for sure act friendly toward me, or do I not know?

Joshua: It would act, however you would think it would. Let’s say that you raised it from an egg, so it would be as friendly toward you as it possibly could. I would be pretty confident that you raising a dinosaur would make it fairly friendly towards you.

Jason: My initial reaction would be a velociraptor because Jurassic Park made them look pretty badass. Especially if it was going to be the only dinosaur on Earth, everyone would be much happier with me for selecting that dinosaur since it is the popular favorite. But even raising it nicely a velociraptor to me seems like it would still kill people.

Joshua: Yeah I think that would probably still kill people.

Jason: I guess I’d have to look into the details of the whole situation to decide whether I want the velociraptor or not. I guess I’d probably need a backup dinosaur now, since I don’t know what they’re going to give me for details.

Joshua: Yeah, you have no way of knowing what the dinosaur reanimation commission will say.

Jason: So for backup dinosaur, probably the stegosaurus. Because it was my favorite as a kid, and I don’t know, it just seems like one of the farthest things from anything in existence today. So that would be a good one to bring back.

The debate: Would you rather have a raptor or a stego?

Joshua: That’s a good one, and I like your reasoning, you just don’t see shit like a stegosaurus anymore. Here’s another question for you, it’s sort of a classical philosophical conundrum. Button then zip, or zip then button?

Jason: For pants? Oh I always zip then button. Oh wait! No. I don’t actually! That just seems like the way to do it but then now that I think about it I always button then zip. That is really weird that my reaction was that, it just seems so normal, but then I realized oh wait I do button first.

Joshua: It’s harder to zip first really, because if you button first . . . .

Jason: Yeah, then it’s just straight up with the zipper. And that’s what I always do. Now you’ve blown my mind!

Joshua: (Laughing) Good! I’m glad! Now Jason the final question I have for you: Is there any one pop culture subject that you think doesn’t get enough attention? It could be a band, a movie, a television show, anything or anyone that you’d like to promote and get others to take notice of.

Jason: I would like to see more attention drawn to the old Mr. Show episodes. It’s an absolutely hilarious show, you know Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, I own all the seasons and it’s one of the funniest shows I’ve seen, but nobody has seen it. There’s so many people who say ‘oh yeah I think I’ve heard of it’ but nobody has actually seen it. I think everyone needs to see that. And also, I’m gonna actually pick two things because they’re equal, the comedy group Stella is hilarious. They had a TV show, but before that they were just 5 minute internet shorts. If you haven’t seen the show, watch the show. Then if you like the show get online and look those up, because on there it’s not TV and they can do whatever they want and it’s highly inappropriate and ten times funnier. Then on top of that, their stand up is absolutely ridiculous. I saw them live and it was one of the best standup events I’ve ever been to. So watch Mr. Show and check out Stella.

Jason Lemmon says: "You should watch this show! It's funny!"

Joshua: Thank you Jason for sitting down here with me today, it’s been a pleasure, I thank you for your time sir, and do you have any final words before we end this?

Today I grace your sightballs with a few precious panels from Star Wars: The Return of Tag & Bink Special Edition#1. Written by Kevin Rubio with art by Lucas Marangon, I would dare to say that Tag and Bink are one of the most beloved Star Wars parodies of all time. They are right up there with one of Rubio’s other Star Wars parody creations Troops. Both Troops and Tag & Bink have an “in continuity” comedic style that masterfully fills in scenes and details that go unviewed in the movies, and with a hilarious goofball twist somehow it all winds up making perfect sense. It’s difficult to explain here to the uninitiated, but let’s just say that if you are a Star Wars fan there’s a good chance you will enjoy Kevin Rubio’s take on the universe. Although if you consider yourself a Star Wars fan and DON’T know who Tag & Bink are there’s a good chance you aren’t really a Star Wars fan. Oh burn!

And because I was idle for a few weeks here, and missed one or two Friday Funny Pages, I will grace you with a BONUS panel from the issue. This image takes place a little earlier in the book (as the setting should make obvious) and just happens to feature a small cameo from a character from one of my other sci-fi fandoms, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Yup, that’s Arthur Dent wandering around on Jabba’s sail barge. Just another reason I enjoy these books so much and think Kevin Rubio is a genius.

This just gave me a thought. I know there are plans for a Star Wars comedy cartoon series in the works with Seth Green at the helm, but if they really want that show to work they should get Kevin Rubio involved. That would be television gold.

So here it is ladies and gentlemen, the post you have all been waiting for! This is Mindless Philosophy’s 100th post! Huzzah! Break out the champagne, send in the strippers, and let us commence the debauched celebrating!

Actually this post probably won’t really be all that exciting. When I realized number 100 was approaching I started thinking about what sort of epic post I could create to exclaim my 100th blog installment to the world. I thought about listing 100 of my favorite things, or sharing 100 bits of my personal observations, or some other such list of 100. As I began to really mull it over however, I realized that would be rather wordy and quite an undertaking just to come up with 100 various items and then type it all out here. So I kept putting it off, and putting it off, until finally several weeks have gone by without any posts whatsoever! I was forced to postpone a couple of Friday Funny Pages because I didn’t want those regular segments to be my grand 100th post. Now however you just get this. (Cue fanfare).

To start off let’s take a look back at a few of my personal favorite posts from the 100 thus far. These aren’t necessarily the ones that have had the most views but the ones I enjoyed writing or have a real connection to:

This particular installment does actually happen to be one of my most read blogs on the site. I really am proud of this one because I was on the forefront of this news at the time. Thanks to the efficiency of Google Alerts I happened upon this story rather quickly. In my continuing mission to raise the general awareness about Babylon 5 I hurried to address the rumors and tossed in a few of my own opinions as well. I’m usually not the type of person to be on the forefront of knowledge, generally information like this goes through several filters before it comes to me. I’m pretty sure my post here actually was a primary source for a few people, and I’m kind of proud of that. Sadly however the rumors were false, and the hopeful talk of a new B5 series was swiftly squashed which necessitated this follow up article: Babylon 5 NOT Returning According To JMS

This wordy proclamation regarding all things Star Wars, and the radio dramas in particular, is a favorite post of mine. It has not been heavily viewed over the course of its life here on the blog, but it has incited a few comments and pushes of the like button. I have a tendency to ramble in some of my blogs which generally is a detriment to articles in this type of forum. More often than not people are just looking for a humorous picture, short review, or relatable anecdote. Generally if a blog post is more than a few hundred words long folks just pass it by. I’m as guilty of this as anyone, a story has to focus on something I’m truly interested in if I’m going to invest my time reading it, either that or it has to lure me in with the promise of some sort of revealed knowledge at the end. Anyway, this article is just me sharing a portion of my love for the Star Wars films and my obsession with the Star Wars Radio Dramas which have been one of my favorite elements of Star Wars since about middle school. It focuses mostly on how I believe the radio dramas are wrongly overlooked these days, how they fill in some crucial moments that are absent from the movies, and how I think real Star Wars fans should be as excited about them as I am.

This one has lost some of its relevancy now that this particular group of Oscar nominees has come and gone. The one nice thing about that however is that you can immediately see which of our Oscar picks were correct and which were way off. The reason I enjoyed this so much was because I was able to convince my wife to participate in this mundane little blogging hobby of mine and I think with our combined talents we were able to come up with some good picks with some fairly solid reasoning to back them up. Plus there’s no shortage of witty banter between us. My wife is incredibly amusing, if you haven’t read her interview in my very first People I Know segment I suggest you do so now by clicking HERE.

Now over the course of my 100 posts I’ve somehow prompted a few misguided souls to actually subscribe to my blog! Sure I only have 13 regular followers, but hell, that’s one more than Jesus! So I’d like to take this time to personally mention and thank the loyal readers of Mindless Philosophy and encourage them to keep reading and make sure to comment and share their thoughts on my writings, after all that’s what this is supposed to be about right? (Of course at this point those Mindless Philosophy email notifications have probably been flagged as spam.)

But without further ado I say thank you to:

Eldon

LouLaMay

secretcastle

pimpdaddylovemuffin

RiverUnderWater

Arlo J. Wiley

comfortingstrangers

Scott

Hannah

Carl

Brian

ryuk8488

and last but certainly not least

salsabiscuit82

Please continue to read, tell your friends, and share your thoughts! You guys are the best group of mostly anonymous blog subscribers a fella could ask for!

Moving on now to the future! In the next couple of days I will have my next installment of People I Know in which I interview Jason Lemmon, a friend of mine and fellow blogger, one of his blogs can be found HERE. During our chit-chat before and after the interview we casually discussed the idea of starting a combined podcast where we would talk about the various plethora of things that interest us in the humorous manner in which we generally discuss such things. Since then we’ve been toying with the idea more and more and have tossed a few ideas around. While I won’t confirm or deny anything at this time, I will say that it is quite possible that there just might be such a production in the very near future. Expect to read more news about that here as it develops!

And finally, I would like to know what you the readers would like to see on this blog. After 100 posts of me spouting off randomly perhaps there might be some unexplored or underexplored topics you’d like to see get the Mindless Philosophy treatment, what subjects should be subjected to the Joshua Witsaman filter? Therefore I present to you this poll with which you can help shape the future of my random spoutings. Vote.

I know that there are a great many homeowners out there who dislike squirrels. As a child I recall my own father hijacking my BB gun in order to pelt the arboreal rodents with a hail of BB fire in order to deter them from getting under our aluminum siding. It didn’t really work of course. That particular BB gun wasn’t really powerful enough to do significant damage at any distance further than three feet. I’m sure those squirrels weren’t happy with the stinging bite of brass that harassed them, but they also weren’t really smart enough to correlate that pain with their attempts to live under our siding. However that BB gun sat by the backdoor that entire summer, ready for action at the first sight of pesky varmints. And that entire summer squirrels continued to try and pry back that loose aluminum until finally it was repaired, thus solving the problem and ending the crusade against the squirrels.

My wife Lauren and I have heard similar stories from friends and people we know who have had their own troubles with the bushy tailed acorn eaters, and as home owners ourselves it’s a problem we hope we never have to deal with. For us squirrels have been a great source of entertainment throughout our relationship. During our courting years I recall taking long walks around the neighborhood or hikes through the local parks and occasionally stopping to watch the antics of a group of scurrying squirrels. When we were in college I remember one particular visit Lauren made to Rio Grande where we walked around the campus and came upon a small baby squirrel. The little guy was doubtlessly scared and as he did his best to clamber up the nearest tree with his tiny squirrel hands he looked over his shoulder at us, raised his little tail, and pissed in our direction. Whether it was out of fear, or to deter our chasing him, it was a delight! Nowadays we enjoy watching the squirrels of our own backyard. The frisky frolicking of spring time and the ridiculous manner in which squirrels pat the ground when burying their acorns in the fall, we are continuously finding the little bastards amusing. Of course on occasion I have been forced to bludgeon to death half dead, semi paralyzed, squirrels who were not quite fast enough to outrun the great huntress Maple, our female puggle. I have an efficient system for this though. Using what I like to call my “Kill’n Shovel” I am able to end their mangled suffering with a quick whack and then make another pass to scoop them up and deposit them in a trash bag.

What I’d like to see is an in depth animal documentary about the typical neighborhood animals of the American Mid-West. I want one of those nest view cameras in place in a squirrel bungalow in order to see just what they do up there. I want to see how the crows and squirrels battle it out for tree space. I want to know the daily struggles of chipmunks, and the dangers of feral cats. I’d like to learn just how much of a threat hawks are to neighborhood rodents. I want to validate my theories that raccoons have created a sewer based Shangri-La and built a society and economy based on banana peels and fish heads. If nothing else, though, the squirrels. I want to know more about the squirrels. It just seems to me that there is a very interesting subject there just waiting to be put on film. Oh, and the documentary should be narrated by Eric Idle. Yeah, I think that would be perfect. Mull that over.

Now someone write a letter to Animal Planet or Discovery Channel or whatever and get this going.

Batman and Robin. There are countless homosexual innuendos that spring up surrounding this dynamic duo, everyone has heard them before. Sure it’s amusing, and some people prefer Batman without Robin because it prevents such awkward moments from cropping up in the comics. Personally I’m a big fan of a Batman with Robin, I like Batman to have that youthful counterpoint to his brooding aged pessimism. Generally Robin is a little more easy going and provides a bit of comic relief to the stark, grim nature of Batman. Of course that comparatively jovial tone can be over done, and when taken too far Robin becomes annoying. It all really depends on the writer, and which version of the Boy Wonder is being portrayed. Overall though I like to see the one two punch of Batman and Robin taking out a villain. The partnership creates the possibility for more complex story telling and allows the character of Batman to execute more dynamic crime fighting maneuvers.

Now, about this panel. I really don’t know what the hell is going on here, but this is one of the most awkward panels I have ever seen. I would like to thank David Tavolier for submitting today’s image. As soon as I saw it I knew it was perfect for Friday Funny Pages. There are several things that are disturbing about this. 1: Shirtless Robin. What was just going on here? 2: Batman in full gear. When you put Batman in his full costume in front of a shirtless boy it just gives off a creepy vibe. His costume ceases being a superhero disguise, and suddenly seems more like some kind of S&M suit. 3: Batman has “experience.” Hand on the shoulder, leaning in saying, “If you want to talk to someone who’s had experience in that area . . . ” Yikes! 4: Robin is peering into your soul. The Boy Wonder’s direct eye contact with the reader is unsettling. Is it perhaps a cry for help? 5: This image wasn’t questioned. I mean, come on! The artist drew this panel and didn’t think, Hmmmm this might come off wrong? I’m convinced they knew what they were drawing, they knew I needed a good Batman rape scene to go along with my Superman rape scene from a few weeks back. So thanks for that, and thanks for providing more fodder for the Batman/Robin gay joke extravaganza!

Today’s image arrives to us from the pages of Dr. Strange volume 2 #5, collected in the trade paperback entitled Doctor Strange: Separate Reality. Written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Frank Brunner this collection of their run is really a pretty enjoyable read and should be on the must read list for anyone who aspires to be an apprentice fan of the good Doctor Strange.

There’s really not much to tell about this one. The name of the fellow with the full bladder is Silver Dagger, a long running villain of Dr. Strange who is a Christian religious zealot determined to destroy Dr. Strange and his esoteric practices. Armed with an enchanted dagger made of silver (go figure) Silver Dagger will kill any who get in the way of his mission to destroy the Sorcerer Supreme. On the left is Clea, the transdimensional girlfriend of Dr. Strange and niece of his arch-nemesis Dormammu! But of course you already knew all that.

Here Silver Dagger believes that Dr. Strange has been killed, but little does he know that the master of the mystic arts still has a few tricks up his ethereal sleeve. The spirit of Stephen Strange is able to possess a mannequin dressed in his clothes and uses it to try and take the villain by surprise, to no avail. Silver Dagger, believing the event was some trick by Clea, laughs off the attempt to overtake him and leaves her unattended while he goes off to take a piss.

Dr. Strange of course had a plan, and the underestimations of the mustachioed Silver Dagger come back to haunt him, quite literally! I’ll leave out all the details however as I’m sure you’d much rather read it all for yourself!

Tonight you get 3 comic goodies for the price of one, think of it as a Trick or Treat bonus! I was planning on having this posted earlier today but as luck would have it the wife had the computer with her for most of the day and our evening was tied up in further Halloween festivities. So now as I sit here watching the Hammer Films Classic The Curse of Frankenstein and Peter Cushing’s wicked portrayal of the villainous Baron Frankenstein I finally have some time to attend to my blog duties!

Capping off this month of Halloween related comic panels I give you this horror ridden trifecta of images from very different origins. First off I show to you a brief series of panels from Eric Powell’s The Goon. This excerpt comes from a short story featuring some of my favorite Goon characters, the filthy gang of street urchins known as the Little Unholy Bastards. Here we see the LUB’s making their break from the orphanage in order sneak out to do some Trick or Treating. If you don’t know anything about the Goon, these panels give you some idea what the book is like. If you find horrid old ladies being beaten by unruly youths to be amusing, then you might want to look into reading more of Eric Powell’s work!

Next up is an image that comes from a comic I’ve had in my possession for over 20 years! Count Duckula #3, written by Michael Gallagher with art by Warren Kremer this book was one of the first comics I ever purchased. It was read countless times, became a permanent part of my childhood library, and survived a move. Surprisingly it is still in decent shape. I was a big fan of Danger Mouse and Count Duckula as a kid, although there never seemed to be even amounts of airings of Count Duckula to Danger Mouse, so it was always nice to be able to find the count in other media. This panel exemplifies a bit of Count Duckula’s goofiness as well as hinting at the duck vampires vegetarian diet. Being that it’s Halloween I thought it appropriate to bust out this old favorite of mine.

Finally we have a recent comic book horror crossover and perhaps several of you out there will already recognize it as being a panel from Marvel Zombies VS Army of Darkness. Issue #4 to be precise, with words by John Layman and an army of artists including Fabiano Neves, Fernando Blanco, and Sean Phillips. Here we see Ash, the main protagonist from the Evil Dead series, in the grip of one of Marvel comics baddest baddies, Dr. Doom! In the story Ash has joined up with one of my favorites, Dazzler, in search of a way to reclaim the accursed Necronomicon and halt the zombie outbreak that has spread throughout the Marvel universe. Long story short they run into an undead Howard the Duck, travel to Latveria, and meet up with Dr. Doom who of course is something of an expert in the dark arts. Although the Marvel Zombies run of series has been rather played out as of late, this epic crossover was one of the last truly enjoyable takes on the superhero/zombie genre.

So there you have it, although there is little left now of Halloween keep your thoughts dark and your nerves sharp for you never can tell what lurks around the next shadowy corner! Happy Halloween!